The Birth of Jesus the Son of God

Jesus was born in Bethlehem of
Judea between 6 and 4BC. His birth was preceded by the Annunciation in
which an Angel appeared to Mary and prophesied the birth of a son and
commanded her to name Him Jesus. Whether the massacre of the Innocents
is historically true or not as has been claimed by some scholars, what
then followed was the escape to Egypt by Joseph, Mary and her son. We
can assume that Jesus was probably about a few months old at the flight
to Egypt.

Historically, we do not have the
records of how long Jesus was in Egypt with His parents but it can
safely be assumed that they came back when He was still a child because
we have reports of Joseph going to the Jerusalem Temple every year and
that Jesus Himself, according to the custom was taken to the Temple when
He was twelve.

Jesus' birth was preceded by the Annunciation and also by the
appearance to Joseph of an Angel reassuring him not to be alarmed at the
state of Mary. This is an interesting development because the question
here was that Mary was suddenly found to be pregnant by Joseph who was
her betrothed and according to the custom was already considering
breaking his vow to her. He was, however, prevented from doing this by the
Angel who reassured him that this was no ordinary pregnancy but a
pregnancy which was holy.

The question of the Annunciation,
however, and the purpose of it was different. Mary was approached by the
Angel even before she got pregnant and was promised that she would bear
a child and was to call the child Jesus. After the visitation by the
Angel we are told that Mary offered the Magnificat in which there was
praise to the Lord and a heartfelt gratitude for being deemed worthy for
such Divine Grace.

The purpose of the Annunciation was to
prepare Mary spiritually for the events that were to follow. The event
(the Annunciation) was so stupendous that it became the most important
event in her life and allowed her more and more to occupy herself with
spiritual matters which made all base thoughts and feelings disappear.
Her intuitions were so pure at this stage that it provided a soil upon
which an Immaculate Conception could occur.

If an earthly woman was chosen
to carry the Divine Spirit, she must be seen to carry within herself the
basis for this in terms of purity of thoughts and intuitive perceptions.
The soil therefore was prepared in Mary for an entrance of a part of
God. In fact it is only on such a soil that a part of God can enter.

At that time we are told that
there was a census going on and this has been confirmed recently that
Caesar Augustus deemed that a census be carried out for the sake of
proper tax estimations. Therefore, Joseph who normally lived and worked
in Nazareth as a carpenter journeyed with his wife Mary who was heavily
pregnant with child. Joseph was a direct descendant of king David and as
such had to go to Judaea for the census since the law demanded that each
return to their ancestral land for this. Because of the overcrowding
there, however, there was no inn for them to stay in so much so that when
Mary went into labour, they could only find space in a stable.

She gave birth to Jesus in
Bethlehem of Judea in a stable. It is interesting to note that one of
the reasons advanced by the priestly aristocracy for rejecting Jesus was
that as far as the writings of the prophets were concerned, no Messiah
was supposed to arise from Galilee. The general supposition then was
that Jesus could not be the Messiah because it was thought that He was
born in Nazareth, in Galilee when it had been predicted that the Messiah
was to have been born in Bethlehem. We now know historically that Jesus
was born in Bethlehem.

Jesus therefore was the expected Messiah but was not recognized as such by the existing religion.